ANALYSIS OF JULY 25, 2024 SUPREME COURT ORDER

(Posted July 25, 2024) The Supreme Court of Virginia decides one case today by published order. Gaskins v. Clarke is a habeas corpus petition that invokes the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction.

This is a dispute over how much credit an inmate should receive against his Virginia sentence for time he spent in pretrial confinement in Maryland for unrelated charges. The petitioner was convicted in Virginia of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The circuit court admitted him to post-conviction bail pending his appeal of that conviction, and released him.

That part didn’t work well; while out on bail, the petitioner got arrested in Maryland on several serious felony charges. Maryland held him without bail, but was prepared to issue a pretrial release until a bench warrant arrived from the Virginia circuit court. The petitioner’s appeals of his Virginia conviction had failed, and the judge here wanted him to start serving the mandatory five-year prison sentence.

That order led the Maryland court to hold the petitioner instead of releasing him. Ten months later, the Maryland charges dissolved when the prosecution was unable to contact the victim. Eight days after that, Maryland extradited the petitioner to Virginia.

Back in the Commonwealth, the petitioner asked for time-served credit for nearly 300 days of his incarceration in Maryland, explaining that the only reason he wasn’t released up there was Virginia’s warrant. The Director of Corrections agreed to give him only eight days’ credit. That led to this habeas petition.

The Supreme Court addresses the first aspect of the claim, based on Code §53.1-187, and disposes of it in a single paragraph. That statute allows credit for any days spent in pretrial custody in a state or local correctional facility. That sounds plausible until you check the definitions section at the beginning of Title 53.1; that statute defines state and local correctional facilities as those operated by the Commonwealth or a political subdivision of it. Maryland incarceration doesn’t count.

The analysis is more complex for the petitioner’s second claim, based on the federal Due Process Clause. The petitioner cited a single opinion from a US District Court in support of his argument that he has a liberty interest in credit for his time served. The Supreme Court today rejects that claim, holding that any responsibility for the detention up in Maryland lies with that state, not with Virginia. Even if that detention were wrongful, Virginia didn’t create it, so the Virginia corrections system doesn’t have to account for it.

As with most OJ proceedings, the litigants didn’t argue the case orally; the Supreme Court decided it on the briefs. The order is unanimous but unsigned, so we can’t know who wrote it.